


it's just like the dark

by thereinafter (isyche)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Giant Spiders, Kissing, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sensory Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 17:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17985842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyche/pseuds/thereinafter
Summary: Cassandra and Sylvie Lavellan, trapped in a Storm Coast cave without light, find it easier to make some confessions and discoveries.





	it's just like the dark

The massive slab had crashed down across the passage when they were a few steps past it, sealing out the light. Whether a decaying support or some old dwarven trap was to blame, they were stuck.

She heard Cassandra's breath, a hard gasp as she fell back from the stone.

The intimacy of the sound in the darkness made Sylvie curl her fingers under her thighs in a silent squirm. _Trapped in a cave at low tide and all you can think of is her breathing next to you. Maybe focus on not getting her drowned, then, idiot._

"It did not move an inch." Gravel shifted and Cassandra made a more irritated noise as she slid down beside her.

“The caves go all along the coast, don’t they? There must be other exits.”

"There must. Can you make a light?"

“Probably not without burning our faces off. I’ve never been great at small controlled things. Lightning, inferno, yes. Reading candle, never. My Keeper made a joke of it ...” She realized she was chattering on for no reason, and stopped.

Cassandra chuckled. “I can sympathize.” More gravel shifted and she added, “With you, that is. In that.”

Sylvie began stripping off her glove, grateful the dark hid her blush. “I’d blow up the rock if I only knew a spell for it." She flexed her hand in the blackness, willing it to glow. “The mark isn’t cooperating either.” She sighed. “At least there’s no rift nearby. I can be useful in one way.”

“Thank Andraste for that. I must be fighting to call any light, but I will take darkness over demons.”

Sylvie had dropped the glove. When she groped around herself for it, all she felt were damp rocks and slimy sea moss. She reached further, touched the mail and leather over Cassandra’s arm, and flinched back. “Sorry.”

“To go on from here, we will need to keep hold of each other, I think.”

An excellent guideline for survival, Sylvie reflected. She wanted to laugh and swallowed instead.

“Are you ready?”

“Anytime.”

Her gloved fingers closed on Sylvie’s, reassuring and distracting as they stood up together. Sylvie felt for her staff with the other hand.

“An Orlesian gardener once told me that when lost in a maze, you should touch one wall and follow it as far as you can,” said Cassandra.

“Have you ever tried it?”

“No.”

Now Sylvie did laugh. A moment later it echoed, faint and eerie, in the unknown distance.

“But it seems the cave goes on,” Cassandra remarked. “I am willing to try.” The knock of her other gauntlet on the wall, ahead and to the right. “This one?”

“I’d trust either hand of yours,” Sylvie said, then cringed at how inappropriate that sounded, but heard her laugh quietly.

“Lead and I’ll try to hang on,” she added.

Cassandra began to take what felt like careful steps along the right-hand wall, pulling Sylvie with her.

Moss and mud squished under Sylvie’s feet, and loose stones rolled. Her toe struck one, and there was a splash to the left. Step by step she followed Cassandra’s lead along what she thought was still the wall opposite the fallen slab, poking the ground with her staff.

At home, she’d always been content to stay near the aravels and leave the wilderness to the more favored of Andruil. She didn’t even know why she’d picked this cave, except that it was a landmark they hadn’t filled in. Stumbling, she felt something wet and clammy, and shuddered. The high-water marks had been far above their heads in the outer cavern; who knew what grew down here? What had she gotten them into?

The air, heavy with moisture, smelled of decaying seaweed and wet sand. As they kept to the winding wall, for what felt like an hour they climbed over rock formations, stair-stepped like the ones outside, with slimy, salty growths and treacherous gaps between. When Sylvie slipped into them, Cassandra hauled her back up, and when she put a foot wrong, less often, Sylvie was her counterweight, catching her however she could.

Dorian and Sera were lucky they were too hung over to come along, she thought. And part of her was stupidly glad they hadn’t. Even with the non-zero risk of drowning and subsequent apocalypse.

But there had to be a way out of here. And Sylvie believed—well, hoped—she could cast an arcane shield that repelled water, if pressed. She was considering the geometry of both of them fitting into such a thing when Cassandra stopped short, and her grip told Sylvie to freeze.

Something chittered in the black space overhead.

A metal sound, and her stance changed; she must have drawn her sword with her other hand.

A second chitter and a scuttling, nearer. Sylvie suppressed the urge to flail around her ears to keep them clear. She whispered, “If you get down I can—”

Before she finished, a cold, hairy, jointed bulk crashed into her, clicking and hissing, knocking her away from Cassandra and off her feet. She fell heavily, one foot catching between rocks, and pain flared in her ankle, making her yelp.

“Sylvie!” Cassandra shouted, and the walls threw both sounds back, noise bouncing around what felt like a big chamber.

The giant spider gave an inhuman chirping squeal and crawled up her body with too many legs, opening luminous green eyes, dripping something awful. Her staff was caught beneath her. “Here!” Sylvie thrashed and kicked at the creature with her free leg until its weight was yanked away and she heard it squeal across the cave.

Then a scuffling, chittering uproar against more metal sounds as Cassandra … wrestled it? Stabbed it?

Sylvie pushed herself up on an elbow and dragged her staff around. Overhead, more clicking, and a constellation of green lights, migrating and growing closer.

“Down!” she yelled to Cassandra, forcing energy through the staff. A count of one, two, and it coalesced into blinding fire around the spider nest, blasting down heat and light.

Sylvie fell back to the ground, drained, shielding her face with a sleeve. Webs burned, trails flaming out across the cave roof, dripping from natural arches. Some spiders were crisped in place, some fell burning, and some fled, massive shapes scattering.

Cassandra rose from the first spider and hurried toward her as the flames died, and then they were again submerged in darkness.

Afterimages of the fire flickered across her vision, blue and violet on black. Sylvie heard metal scrape stone beside her, and Cassandra's hand found her hair, then her shoulder. She slipped an arm behind Sylvie's back, half lifting her. "Did it bite you?"

“I think my ankle is sprained. No bites."

Cassandra sighed in relief. Sylvie was intensely conscious that she felt it, cradled as she was against the curve of her breastplate. "It would be better if I could see you. The poison can be very bad."

Sylvie felt her voice, too, a low warm vibration she wanted to bury herself in. Why did she have to think that now? She commanded herself to keep it together.

"I feel all right, really. Thanks for getting it off me.” She shuddered. “Ugh.”

Above, a few embers glowed faintly red. Smoke was heavy in the air, almost covering the leather-metal-wet wool scents of their gear. “I’ll need some recovery time," she added.

"I think you saved that for the right moment," said Cassandra, not showing any sign of letting go. Sylvie made a noncommittal noise, wrapped up in resisting the arm around her.

"But they did not all die. And walking on a sprain will make it worse.” She paused. “We might move faster if I carry you."

"Oh, no," Sylvie blurted out, and then had to continue. “I can manage. You’re—”

“Perfectly capable of it for a while. You are no burden.”

“I don’t doubt you could.”

"Then, I am what?"

She tried to sit up, then flinched at the pain of her ankle still caught between the rocks, and slowly extracted it.

"You're you, and I’m—" She groaned, resigning herself to the humiliation. "I like it too much. Oh, you know, I said it on the battlements."

Cassandra was quiet. Sylvie tried not to pay attention to her breathing, but the fact that she hadn't let go made it impossible. "Forget it and let’s just walk," she said quickly. "I didn’t mean to bring it up again at the worst time. Let me go?"

The longest second in the world passed. Her awareness was filled with Cassandra’s proximity, her own heart beating fast, her worry and hope that something would change.

"And if I did not?" Cassandra’s voice was swallowed, half in her throat. “I remember everything you said. I came today to be alone with you.” Her hand tightened on Sylvie's shoulder. “Even if it may kill us. I told you that is what I want.”

After another endless second, Sylvie found her way back to forming words. "If you didn’t, then I'd—" She dared to reach up in the dark and find Cassandra's face, shaping her hand to her cheek, feeling the same unsure tension in her.

Lightly, carefully, she discovered what she knew by sight: forehead and temple where her pulse beat. Flutter of her eyelash, delicate closed eye. High arch of cheekbone, gritty with ash and salt, and the seam of the scar, so close to her lips. And things she did not: tightly crossed pins that held her braid up, invisible but sharp, cropped feathery hair behind her ear, collar damp with sweat or seawater.

Cassandra sighed then, and bent her head and drew Sylvie closer, her support now an undeniable embrace. “And do you like this?” she asked, a murmur of warmth against Sylvie’s wrist.

“Too much,” Sylvie whispered. Her ear tips were hot. Her heart beat in her throat. Drunk with the sudden license to touch her, she followed the same path again, like practicing new magic, and thrilled when it seemed to please her.

At first they only held each other, uncertainly but tightly, ignoring their surroundings, the feeling like a bubble she didn't want to break, growing and maybe fragile, there in the smoky wet darkness.

A blur of things clan girls had liked drifted up in Sylvie’s mind, and she discarded them. This was too different. She wanted to turn her face against her and cling and climb her, sense all the living breathing weight of her with her whole body. She kissed the rough-edged softness of her cheek, and her ear, and the sliver of neck she could feel above her collar. The salt had dried sharp on her skin, and probably Sylvie's own.

Cassandra's free hand came up into her hair, careful around her own ears. Sylvie felt the heat of her mouth. She turned her head and their lips met, fitted together like they were meant to. Sylvie heard herself make a helpless sound, could tell from the force of her arms that she felt this too, and she was lost. Ignited. Her blood felt radiant inside her. Was this what her divine light felt like? Was it with her always, so devastating?

Sylvie felt as though she could melt the layers of metal between them, learned her reactions with her body and her hands and her tongue, or started to.

Until Cassandra stopped her. "I have wanted this," she said hoarsely into the kiss, so that Sylvie felt the words, making her burn harder and writhe a little, "I do. But the tide … we cannot. I have seen people drown. You …"

Her concern, her effort at restraint. “ _Vhenan_ ,” Sylvie said unthinking, and didn’t want to take it back, or get up or leave here, this horrible place now etched into her brain. She considered proposing the arcane shield, staying entwined in its circle beneath the water, but wasn’t sure enough that it would work. “You’re right.”

“Believe me that I would rather not be.” Her tone made Sylvie grin.

She took a deep careful breath to settle herself. “Will you help me up?”

Cassandra’s touch lingered on her cheek, and then she felt her nod. “Will you let me—”

“I really can walk.” Sylvie forced the ankle against the ground and winced again, but it held. “I’d rather your sword hand were free. If the spiders come back.”

The faint sliding and jingle of her adjusting something, and she sat back, and they were parted. Sylvie felt an absurd momentary deprivation. Instead of reaching out like she wanted, she started to climb to her knees on her own.

“Here.” Cassandra’s voice was still beside her. She caught her under the arms and slung Sylvie’s right arm over her shoulder. “Then at least lean on me a while longer.”

Sylvie, relieved, didn’t argue and held on as she stood up. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to grab her staff, or she might never have found it, because with the first hobbling step they took, she splashed into water that hadn’t been there before. “Oh!”

“What?” Cassandra pulled her back a half step.

“Water, already. We must have been on high ground.” She tried to picture how the cave had looked in the few seconds of the firestorm. “I remember two passages out of here.”

“One past the spider and another to the left,” Cassandra agreed.

They forged ahead through the smoky air and shallow inflow that soaked into Sylvie’s boots. The air was noticeably fresher around the narrow opening of the first passage, and without much discussion, they chose that one, still keeping to the right-hand wall.

The tunnel floor seemed to angle up; at least at first, they left the water behind, which seemed to confirm it was the better choice. Sylvie stared up into the blackness, straining to detect spider eyes, but saw only meaningless patterns and afterimages as if hers were closed.

The rest of the journey out of the cave was a dark, wet, indefinite period of failing to predict the varying ground, gritting her teeth at the pain in her ankle, going from stumbling to wading, and at the same time not caring because they were pressed together the whole time and her body stayed alight like a flame over coals. Sylvie wondered if it felt the same to Cassandra, wished again to see her face, wondered what she would do when she could.

The tidewater had risen knee-deep around them—the chambers behind must have filled—and they’d fallen in together twice when Sylvie spied a glow high overhead.

“Do you see—”

“Yes.”

* * *

There was a ladder carved into the cave wall, some ancient dwarven escape route. Sylvie went first, pulling herself up with both arms and her good foot, grateful for the trees she’d climbed as a child.

When she emerged into open air at last, it wasn’t raining: a remarkable event indeed on the Storm Coast.

Sylvie crawled out through long grass to the nearby rock face, squinting in the too-bright light. The sun was out. The ground was dry. There were colors. It was wonderful. She lay back against the rock and sent a mental all-encompassing thanks to any of the Creators who might hear.

“Andraste be praised,” echoed Cassandra, climbing out behind her.

Sylvie shaded her eyes to look. They were both soaked with seawater, bedraggled, smeared with mud and soot, blinking like moles, and she was still like this. Unfair. Or maybe not, if she would come kiss her again. “What a sight we are,” she said, both joking and never wanting to look away.

Cassandra gave a tired half-sigh, half-laugh and fell to her knees in the grass. "How is your ankle?"

"I don't want to know."

"Let me see."

Sylvie sat forward, staff unwieldy on her back, and worked at the buckles of her boot. Pain stabbed whenever her foot wobbled. Perhaps she’d have done better barefoot, like they did at home.

Seeing her struggle, Cassandra pulled off her gloves and helped her pick the buckles open and peel away the boot, more easily than she could from her awkward angle.

There was swelling and angry bruising around the joint. Cassandra hesitated to touch her skin at first, but then slid a hand gently up her ankle to feel it. The touch went straight through Sylvie, who sucked in a breath, even though it hurt.

She turned Sylvie’s foot one way, then another. "Nothing seems broken," she said, finally. "Only by the grace of the Maker, or your Creators. We should get you back to the camp."

“Fair enough.” Sylvie looked down at her lap and cleared her throat. “Right now? I mean …” She covered Cassandra’s fingers with hers, feeling the opposite of smooth.

Then she glanced back up to see a nervous expression and a blush that matched the one she felt.

They held each other’s gaze.

“I could rest.” Sylvie turned Cassandra’s hand in her own, studying it with hers. She lifted it to her cheek, and Cassandra moved to touch her face, slowly, the way she had down in the dark.

Sylvie held still, held her breath, watched and read her.

Emotions were plain in her eyes: curiosity, protectiveness, warmth to match the caress, a spark catching as her fingers brushed over Sylvie’s lips.

“You could stay,” Sylvie said then, and couldn’t stop herself from adding, “I promise not to drown.”  
  
Cassandra laughed, abrupt and sincere, and leaned toward her this time and kissed her first.

* * *

They made it back to the Inquisition camp still filthy and disheveled, with Sylvie hobbling on Cassandra’s arm, knowing she looked inappropriately pleased but powerless to change it.

Sera and Dorian were playing a game with stones near the campfire, rested and bright-eyed and dry.

“Told you!” Sera jumped to her feet, overturning the board. “Pay up.”

Dorian groaned and dropped a stack of coins into her hand. “You’ve lost me good money. I’m glad at least you’re smiling for once, Cassandra.” He waved his arm to take both of them in. “Congratulations and all that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I am going to find the Inquisitor a healer.” And she stalked off between the tents.

Sylvie settled herself by the fire and watched her leave. Dorian scooped up the game pieces and ducked into his tent.

Sera danced around, grinning at her and pointing. “You and Cassandra, sitting in a tree. Or, not a tree, whatever. But you definitely did.”

“ _I_ don’t know what _you’re_ talking about,” Sylvie said, but spoiled the delivery by laughing.

“Yeah, you did. Well done, you.” She ruffled Sylvie’s hair.

“Piss off, Sera.”

“I will after she gets back.”

She did, but not before extracting a few unimportant details, although Sylvie refused to describe anything.

When Cassandra returned she had an Inquisition medic in tow, who wrapped Sylvie’s ankle with a poultice and gave her elfroot to drink and a basin to wash in, and then went away. In fact, everyone seemed to pointedly fade away from the vicinity, which amused Sylvie as she tried to wash up.

Cassandra was sitting closer to the fire. Sylvie stole another glance at her.

“What is it?”

“Just looking at you.”

“You have seen me every day since you fell out of the Breach.” She poked the embers with a stick, stirring them.

“Not like this. I feel like I should run out and bring you back candles and flowers and poetry all together, at the same time.”

Cassandra gave her a sideways abashed smile. “I think you know I would not mind.”

“Maybe I’ll ask Leliana for advice,” Sylvie mused.

“ _That_ I mind. I will never hear the end from her as it is.” Then she added, more softly, “I’m sure your own imagination is equal to the task.”

Sylvie felt her ears get warm again. “I’ll try not to disappoint.”

The satisfied _hmm_ she got in answer was enough to inspire her for some time.

 


End file.
